A study of school children who had identified virus infections of the central nervous system during infancy

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Abstract
Children (49) who had a CNS virus infection when < 1 yr of age were studied. One child died during the initial illness; 3 of the survivors were secerely disabled. The other survivors, > 5 yr after the initial illness, were all attending normal schools. These 45 children together with 45 matched controls, were examined. The findings of other studies that virus infections of the CNS in infancy may cause severe disabilities in some cases and may depress intellectual abilities in others, even though they appear to have recovered fully, are confirmed. Many of the children who had a virus infection of the CNS in infancy had adverse birth and social histories and so were exceptionally vulnerable; these factors did not account fully for the findings. When their influence was included in the analysis, the index children still had a mean performance IQ (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children) 6 points lower than the control children (P < 0.05); there was < 1 point difference between the verbal IQ. Attention is drawn to the problem of virus infections in neonatal units.